Confessions of a Former “SAM Aro”
This post was written for the September 2021 Carnival of Aros, where the theme is “Language.” In the aspec communities I’m originally from (mostly Reddit) and in the vast majority of the educational material I read when first discovering aspec identities, the “split-attraction model” (SAM) is the predominant conceptualization scheme for explaining aspec identities, and …
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Being an Ambassador to the Queer Hive Mind
This post was written for the September 2021 Carnival of Aces, where the theme is “The ‘We’ of Me.” In minority communities, we tend to use language like, “the asexual community” or “the trans community” to refer to the set of people in a particular identity group. And while my queer and neurodivergent identities do …
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Accommodating My Disability Is Not “Giving Up”
I’m autistic, and I consider my autism to be a disability. Not all autistic people consider themselves to be disabled, and that’s valid, but I do; I have differences that society is not accommodating of. Something I noticed when I started being more open with friends and family about my disability is that a lot …
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Amatonormativity and the Future I Never Really Wanted
This post was written for the August 2021 Carnival of Aros, where the theme is “Well-being and Amatonormativity.” People in aspec communities talk a lot about the day-to-day challenges amatonormativity imposes on their lives. For this month’s carnival, I want to talk a bit about how amatonormativity harmed me before I realized I’m aro and …
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White Lies and Approximate Definitions
This post was written for the May 2021 Carnival of Aces, where the theme is “Words and Conceptualizations.” You know how sometimes you tell those little white lies because the truth is just too complicated to explain? You don’t intent to mislead anyone, but telling the full story would take too long, so you just …
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The Layer Cake of My Identity
This post was written for the May 2021 Carnival of Aces, where the theme is “Words and Conceptualizations.” My bio on this blog currently labels me as “an asexual, aromantic, autistic, non-binary person.” While this isn’t inaccurate, it’s more of a context-sensitive approximation of my identity than a comprehensive examination of it. The truth is …
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The Language of Asexuality Before AVEN
The asexual community as we know it today is quite young; while the broader LGBTQ rights movement is usually traced back to the Stonewall Riots of 1969, the modern asexual community evolved much later. The founding of the Asexual Visibility and Education Network (AVEN) in 2001 was an important milestone in the asexual movement; the …
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The Amatanormativity in Romance-Coded Language
Much of the language we use to talk about relationships is steeped in amatanormativity. Even the term “relationship” is often assumed to be short for “romantic relationship,” when many aspec people prefer to use the term “relationship” in its more broad sense. In particular, the language we use to talk about partnerships tends to assume …
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Spoons Are Expensive
It’s no surprise that living with a chronic illness or disability in the US can be expensive given the current state of the US healthcare system. People in the neurodiversity community often joke that “mental health is for the rich” given the prohibitive costs associated with mental healthcare. However, the financial problems faced by neurodivergent …
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The Problem With Functioning Labels
Autism is a disorder that most people are vaguely familiar with. Unfortunately, there are a lot of misconceptions about autism—often perpetuated by the media—that people have taken as granted. Among these misconceptions is the idea that people with autism can be broadly classified as “high-functioning” or “low-functioning.” I’m going to explain why terms like these …
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